Lawyer&Mom, Less is More (French & German)

[Lawyer&Mom]

I’ve given up on Glossika Gaelic for the moment. I like it, but I have limited listening time, and I feel it’s twenty minutes I should be using on a French podcast. Besides I am *loving* the Memrise Irish course. Memrise is such a good platform, but the Memrise content itself isn’t always great. Someone put a well designed textbook, Buntus Cainte, on the Memrise platform and it’s just fantastic.

I’ve started Russian Duolingo. I’ve reviewed 10,000+ Russian sentences in Clozemaster, and I’m still horifically awful at spelling anything in Cyrillic. Still time well spent, I can now struggle through Duolingo, whereas before it was just impossible.

[Lawyer&Mom]

Feeling good about Russian. As I said above, I’ve done enough Clozemaster to not be completely overwhelmed by Duolingo. I’ll chip away at that very slowly, and when I finish the tree, I’ll have Assimil waiting for me. Which will then presumably be slightly less daunting. At which point I’ll probably have enough vocab to watch kids cartoons? Then I’ll declare victory (whilst continuing to plug away on Clozemaster...) It’s all a bit Ouroboros, but I’m convinced I can get there without actually trying too hard if I just keep my expectations low and my timeframe long!

[MattNeilsen]

When you're getting started in an opaque language (like you have been with Russian), how exactly are you using Clozemaster? Just pick any answer initially so you can get the answer, and then slowly start piecing together what goes where?

I started using Clozemaster early in my Hebrew studies based on what I read in Expugnator's log, but I felt pretty lost so I reverted to Duolingo and Mondly instead. I just tried jumping back into Clozemaster today and felt a little more prepared, so I'm wondering if I should just approach it as "massive input" and focus on quantity of exposure.

By the way, I love that you're learning French to teach it to your kids. My (soon-to-be) wife and I are planning to have a kid in the near future and a big part of me learning Hebrew is so I can teach it to my child (it's a heritage language for my wife and I've always been fascinated with it). Hopefully, our kids will be even better equipped to learn languages than we are!

[Lawyer&Mom]

Hey, you have a one in four chance with Clozemaster! Just dive in. The first 100 sentences were brutal, but then it got easier. Now at 10,000 sentences it just feels like learning a language. I’ve forgotten I started from scratch.

Learning to teach your kids is both thrilling and terrifying. I’m feeling good that I can read to them now. At the very least I can provide exposure now, and supplement an after school class in the future.

[Lawyer&Mom]

I finished the book!!!!! And I will not read it ever again! Yay!!!

Isabelle Allende is still a great writer. It could have been so much worse...

I’m curious to see how I do with French Game of Thrones for next month’s book club. I felt pretty much like a B2 rock star language wise with this YA book, can I maintain the feeling with a grown-up book not in translation?

French listening is definitely still B1. I forgot what a funny place that is. I’ve switched completely to history podcasts as news bulletins got too easy. Sometimes I will understand every word. Other times I’ll go an whole episode not knowing what they are talking about. It’s a lower-intermediate wonderland!

[Lawyer&Mom]

So I’m at approximately the six month mark for dabbling with Russian and the six week mark for dabbling with Chinese. And I’m just not feeling it at the moment. They are both fun! I enjoy the dabbling! A few minutes every day of playing on the apps isn’t exactly stealing time from my main projects. And yet...

See I started reading in German again. I hadn’t let myself since I started French, because I was afraid it would be so much easier that it would take over. But halfway through the Allende book, my French felt strong enough. I’m really enjoying my new routine: finish all my app stuff during the day, no screen time at all at night, go straight to reading, a chapter in French, then as much as I can stay awake in German. (The Roi du Fer book is great, but exhausting!) I want to play with German! What if I found some apps to work on my German grammar? Instead of Russian, Chinese, Irish? (I have to finish the Memrise Irish course. It’s just that good. But maybe call it a day after that?)

The seasons are changing. Was Russian just a summer fling?

[Ani]

Hmm... You know I think Russian AND Chinese is too much. They're both really big. But Russian, German, and French? Now that's not bad. That gives you.. two intermediate languages (pardon me if I'm misremembering your German history) with lots of great resources & a language bringing up the rear so whenever you're ready to focus on it, it won't be that bad.

[Lawyer&Mom]

Just deleated Chinese from my Clozemaster and Duolingo. I’ve been here before. I took an summer intensive Chinese class in grad school, enjoyed it, and then realized afterwards that I didn’t have enough interest in Chinese to keep going. I don’t see any harm in spending a few weeks every 15 years or so remembering that Chinese is fun. It is fun! I just have other priorities.

The goal with Irish? Finish the course, learn the Our Father and Hail Mary and call it good.

Meanwhile keep reading German. I’m enjoying it so much!

[MattNeilsen]

Just deleated Chinese from my Clozemaster and Duolingo. I’ve been here before. I took an summer intensive Chinese class in grad school, enjoyed it, and then realized afterwards that I didn’t have enough interest in Chinese to keep going. I don’t see any harm in spending a few weeks every 15 years or so remembering that Chinese is fun. It is fun! I just have other priorities.

The goal with Irish? Finish the course, learn the Our Father and Hail Mary and call it good.

Meanwhile keep reading German. I’m enjoying it so much!

I support your infidelity with Chinese and Russian I really enjoy dabbling as well, but there's something immensely satisfying (to me) in deep-diving into one or two main projects. If I get spread too thin, then I start to lose the fire/passion.

It's why I refuse to add Spanish into my Clozemaster queue - I know it will totally suck me away from Hebrew!

[zjones]

How does it feel to read in French and then in German? Does German feel noticeably more homey and confortable than French? Any observations?

I don't know much about dabbling in languages, but I think you made a good call to drop Chinese. If you don't have the motivation to continue, it's just going to make the language feel like an obligation. Besides, you will always have French and German!